The Boldness Pledge

This is an invitation. At this auspicious time of year, what would you like to promise yourself to boldly and resolutely do? I invite you to make that decision public here in the comments some time before the end of Friday. And I will do the same.

The more specific the goal, the better. Example: to get the whole house organized vs. to spend a minimum of two hours a week cleaning out closets and shelves, until they're in the desired condition. See how a specific might get more done?

What's important about going public? The person who does this is more likely to accomplish the goal. Also, she or he gains allies and resources that way. Things fall into place better when all the world and planets can see how they might help out.

I hope you'll post here your own bold pledge to yourself.




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Have Fun!

Merry Christmas! Happy Hannukah! Happy New Year!



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The War of Art

I just started listening in my car to an audio version of the book The War of Art (a clever spin on Sun Tzu's classic Art of War) So far I've only heard the first disc, and I've listened to it twice!! though I just got it yesterday!!

Such good stuff. This is the second great resource I've come upon in recent weeks, the other being The Courage to Teach.

The War of Art is (so far)about resistance-- resisting sitting down to write, or standing up to paint, and more. The author Steven Pressfield views all reluctance to do the best right thing as resistance, a force like gravity that we simply need to acknowledge and persevere in spite of. The way I'm saying it sounds dreadfully pious and unappealing. But hearing it on this audio really has me excited.

The metaphor of one large thing that mindlessly sits on my efforts to get off of the sofa works startlingly well for me. I always knew something was there, Jello-like, trying to stop me. I didn't connect it with the same force that says: I'll check my email instead of working on my novel.

Pressfield says the resistance tends to strike when we approach getting down to work on art, a spiritual practice, any health improvement, or strengthening abdominal muscles.

He says --and, oh, I agree -- that the big R can take a wickedly beguiling variety of forms including lawyerly logic. And whatever form it is: "resistance always lies...is always full of shit."

(Thanks to Thomas Griggs for letting me know about this book/CD.)

BTW, Pressfield writes bestsellers, frequently about warfare (also The Legend of Bagger Vance) I'd say, in his case, resistance doesn't stand a chance.


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One Maybe-Stupid Way to Write with Ease

Though I've had a lot to say here about holiday prep, the fact is I've done what prep I've done in about 12 minutes and otherwise have been working like a coal miner on client projects, mainly one very large one.

Saturday I took the first full day off from any writing/editing for quite a while. Sunday I had a little trouble getting cranked up again. And I realized that I'd forgotten what the initial crank-up felt like: a bit of resistance, easily overcome, but still I felt it....Once again a demonstration that touching "the work" every day, if only for a few minutes, can solve one kind of problem (though, I admit, it may cause others. For one thing,it's the 22nd of December, and I don't seem to have gotten all my Christmas cards out.)



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Hit the Ball, You-All

Mamie, who contributed yesterday's Goethe quote, has found us another bit of get-up-and-go inspiration:

"Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozey, and don't be afraid to hit the ball."
Billie Jean King

As matter of fact, Goethe said something similar: "A clever man commits no minor blunders." (from Brainyquote.com)

It's the "sin boldly" principle, an idea that has always stuck in my head. It has a refreshing clarity.

And "hit the ball?" Well, that brings back my days as head junior varsity cheerleader at Wilmington, NC's New Hanover High School, the home of the Wildcats. One of our ever-useful cheers was: "Hit the ball, you-all! Hit the ball!" Clap. Clap. Clap. Which is pretty much what Billie Jean King, Goethe, Mamie, and I are saying.




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Nervous Goethe?

Mamie, a most-welcome regular bold participant here, has sent us a quote: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
- Goethe

I've read this before, but as I told her, am always glad to be reminded. I also had the thought: Wonder if Goethe was actually a nervous procrastinator.

It's universally known that we all teach (or rattle on about) what we personally need to learn.

I'll bet Goethe was trying to convince himself. I'm going to check around and find out. Thoughts of any Goethe-ists on this would be most welcome.




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Be the Gift

I once heard a woman say in the flurry of "doing" Christmas that she'd decided one afternoon to "be the gift." Often a phrase like this means giving a gift of time: changing someone's lightbulbs or hanging out with them or some such.

But this woman was thinking of it differently. And she was on her way to the mall at the time. So she proceeded to be especially nice to every clerk or cashier she met, every shopper she bumped against. The whole experience was lighter, easier; and she had a wonderful time. Don't you love that? I thought it quite bold.

Another way of thinking about this approach, which I ran across in a sermon: "A Quaker friend of mine used to say to me, 'I will hold you in the light.'”

Of course the whole busy business also applies to Hannukah celebrations and others at this time of year. I've also seen the experience referred to as "doing December." Whatever the occasion, "being the gift" can work.

I watch people like my office partner who celebrates both Christmas and Hannukah (interfaith marriage) and once did a symbolic candle-lighting ceremony on the fold-down tray table on a flight to France (where they were to spend a year) with her family including brand-new baby. Now that's multi-tasking. Or multi-enjoying. She's one who is good at being the gift.



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The Twelve -- or Maybe Two -- Stages of Christmas

Got past the day of holiday agitation. Now it just feels like I'm happily and confidently in the process of landing a small plane, for maybe the second or third time, never mind that this is my 59th Christmas.

I take things too damn seriously. And I doubt if that's going to change a lot. Or if it does it won't be through my straining to make it so. So for the moment I guess I'll just taxi in as is, and then fly off again somewhere else, no doubt to the quiet complexity and soothing pleasures of January.

Bold doesn't have to be simple and slapdash. I'm sure of that.



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More on Teaching Courage

A few days back, I was excited at finding out about a book called The Courage to Teach, by Parker Palmer. Reason: though my classes seem to go well, I always feel a fear of teaching return afterwards. That's so weirdly specific: like being scared of heights only three or seven stories high. And I don't understand the fear's ability to grow back every time I get rid of it.

But anyway, I got hold of the book, started reading and it's everything I'd hope it would be. What it did for me, essentially, is to encourage my teaching in my own way and not worrying about what's supposed to work best. You'd think that would be perfectly obvious, especially for an artist-type. And, in fact, I've pretty much always done it my way, but then worried that people weren't getting what they needed. Apparntly I needed encouragement to keep on doing what I've been doing and simply relax about it.

Here are two quotes I especially like: "External tools of power have occasional utility in teaching, but they are no substitute for authority, the authority that comes from the teacher's inner life....Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts."

And: "Behind their fearful silence, our students want to find their voices, speak their voices, have their voices heard. A good teacher is one who can listen to those voices even before they are spoken--so that someday they can speak with truth and confidence."



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Write Fast

I'M A BIG BELIEVER IN WORKING QUICKLY, BECAUSE I THINK IT'S HARDER-THOUGH NOT IMPOSSIBLE-TO BE PRETENTIOUS WHEN YOU'RE MOVING REALLY FAST.
—Moviemaker Steven Soderbergh

From Interview magazine website

I once got bogged down in the middle of my first novel Revelation. I decided that on the following day, if I could get 7 pages of any quality cranked out, I would then take the rest of the day off for nothing but leisure. No more work, no errands. I figured I might get it done in 7 hours.

The following day I wrote 7 pages in an hour and 45 minutes and they were better than anything I'd written in weeks. The book really came to life again.





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What Roy Blount Wants for Christmas

Roy Blount, Jr., that jolly old elf, is current King Pen of the Authors Guild, and just sent this out to the membership. I think it's a great idea.


"We don't want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let's mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party. Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that's just for starters.

Clear out the mysteries,
wrap up the histories,
beam up the science fiction!

Round up the westerns,
go crazy for self-help,
say yes to the university press books!

Get a load of those coffee-table books,
fatten up on slim volumes of verse,
and take a chance on romance!

There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they're easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. Stockpile children's books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they'll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books. Then tell the grateful booksellers, who by this time will be hanging onto your legs begging you to stay and live with their cat in the stockroom: 'Got to move on, folks. Got some books to write now.'"

(Okay, you're not an old elf, Roy, but jolly good funny.)

If you happen to be a Durhamite, you might choose to party at The Regulator, or in Raleigh at Quail Ridge Books & Music.

(Note: the line breaks and boldfacing are all mine.)





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Santa Claus Hat, Artcar, Goat Meat

In the oatmeal-and-Internet cafe where I am taking my breakfast this morning, a man sits one table ahead of me in a rather elegant serious-looking Santa Claus hat.

He's about thirty, lean, dark and grizzled. The pile of napkins and tea detritus in front of him indicate he has been here for a while, by himself. He is otherwise dressed in a hiply outdoorsy way: layered T-shirts and a down vest.

What worries me is that it took me about ten minutes to notice that the guy has on a Claus cap. I wonder if I'm in a fog and not noticing much and how much of the time this is the case.

And I wonder why he decided to throw on red velvet and faux ermine this morning.
*Is it just the sort of thing he naturally does: it's who he is.
*Is he a late-blooming sociology grad student monitoring reactions (don't think so, he blinks a little too much)
*Did he do it as one of his personal experiments with overthrowing convention
*Or because he is full of the Christmas spirit
*Or because he feels rakish and daring with that fur band around his ears, showercap style
*Did he do it to meet people (an older man in a knit cap, chatty and opinionated, has just sat down at the next table and engaged him in conversation. They shake hands. They both look happy and relieved.
*Is it a signal I haven't heard about?

I suppose someone might have asked the same questions about why I painted morning glories on my car. Answer: I'd always had an irrational craving that way and didn't examine it too closely. And, it didn't feel eccentric, it felt normal, with a twist of delight.

The two guys across from me are both visual artists, I now hear. The older one, black, garrulous, is articulate. The younger white stubble-faced one listens and says, "Holy crap, man!"

What I'm searching for, I think, is what distinguishes an odd gesture that's a natural extension of oneself in a particular moment, from a what-was-I-thinking move.

Did I mention that my beloved husband surprised me with 80 pounds of goat meat for our 25th anniversary on Monday? (I don't cook, don't eat much meat, tried goat once in 1978 and found it so-so.)






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Oprah and Her Weight (and mine)

Oprah has been open about her weight for years. Hard not to be when you're as visible as she is.

But yesterday's bold admission included the actual number of pounds she now weighs. There's something about giving the number that takes more courage, I think. It's not like rescuing children from a burning building, of course; on the other hand, at the level of risk where most of us operate most of the time, I think it's a gut move.

I wonder if she has ever tried Overeaters Anonymous. Back in my twenties, I found them very helpful. I was a bit underweight and doing binge-then-Tab-and-cabbage. Not real healthy. That was before the days when anybody had heard of an eating disorder outside of a medical book or an occasional story of anorexia. I saw one line in a column in a Cosmo that told me about OA. That was all it took. Just a few meetings and the 12-step system taught me some key pieces of good self-management for the weight-wacky.

Maybe Oprah shaved a few pounds off the number she mentioned. I would find that forgivable.




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The Prickly Pain of Uncertainty

One of the gutsiest things I know of is to be able to tolerate uncertainty or ambiguity: do I go or stay? is the biopsy going to show trouble? will I win the Nobel? is he going nuts or just being mean? am I on next week's layoff list? And on and on like that.

A good deal of life is made up of that stuff. And a lot of the time it's important to be able to stay in an uncertain state long enough to make good decisions. By contrast: I remember once in my single years when I felt I'd be relieved for a romance to be over so I could stop fearing the end of it. So I hurried that process along.

Some things that help me in these fretful wobbly periods:
*meditating and exercising
*getting deep into work or some other trance-inducing activity
*telling myself I'll stop thinking about possible outcomes or choices until Tuesday of next week and then I'll get back to it
*doing some research on the question
*check items off a to-do list, whether or not they're relevant
*take any relevant action that might help
*whining to friend
*blog!

Things that don't help:
*overeating
*not eating
*scraping at my skin and other twitchy habits
*making big decisions that could wait
*websurfing
*getting into arguments that could wait

It doesn't take a big issue like a biopsy to trigger the limbo state. I remember my need to decide at the start of ninth grade about whether to sign up for French III. Mon Dieu! People have married and produced children with less obsessing.

I assume that when some little uncertainty goes big as French III did, that there's often a larger one underneath. Something like fear of death, fear of failure, fear of being a ninth grade dork, simply looking for a place to land. Could be the best thing is just to let it land and then sit it out.





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A Necessary Step for Holiday Prep?

The holidays are getting to me today -- in a not-good way. Decisions must be made! And preparations! I just did a web search of seafood restaurants serving on Christmas Day. Don't know that that's the solution, but maybe.

I could view it as a holiday tradition to have one sinking spell. Just expect it and allow time for it. Then back to jingle bells.



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Chocolate With Tam at the Umstead

An unexpectedly uplifting experience yesterday:

I went to "tea" with five friends, as the guest of one of us, photographer Karen Tam. We were celebrating a combo of birthdays and Christmas. Tam took us to the Umstead, a still-newish hotel at Research Triangle Park that has been years in the making. It's extremely well-appointed and it's expensive.

So we dressed up. That alone can feel ennobling, if you spend a fair amount of times in jeans and Uggs before a computer screen.

And then, here's what really got me. Every detail there was so well done that it made me feel like doing everything better. It's a remarkable experience to be somewhere, however briefly, where everything is done as well as humanly possible.

The armchairs, the proximity to the fireplace, the pastries, the hot chocolate, the way we were treated -- wow! And the thing is, it wasn't even all perfect at first crack. The first round of hot chocolate wasn't hot. Ardis, who is bolder than I, mentioned this. The lukewarm chocolate was whisked away and a woman in an elegant black suit came out and apologized and we were then elevated to the rank of visiting queens. (It's always inspiring to see someone turn a glitch into an opportunity for an even better performance.)

I came away feeling more full of purpose, more capable, and (amazing in combo with the other two) more relaxed.

This is the way outings and vacations are supposed to work, and this one was only three hours.

Me and the buds had good time talking too. We do this three times a year; some of us have been friends for 39 years, others only about 35. We shrieked less than usual and were very grown-up in keeping with the fancy setting. Though we did each wear one of Jan's 1940s hats with feathers and veils.




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Dressing Up, Costume, and Being Eccentric

Being a self-employed writer isn't conducive to what used to be called dressing for success.

Even though I have an office away from home, I could get away with going to work in my purple fleece Couch Sack if I were sufficiently what-used-to-be-called laid back.

Today, however, I went hog-wild in the other direction and put on a pencil skirt and heels and a semi-fancy shirt. Mon Dieu! It changes my view of myself and the world. I feel much more grownup (this is important at 59) and to-be-taken-seriously.

What may have inspired me to do this: last night I watched the first half hour of Grey Gardens, the documentary on Jackie O's poor relations, when they were revealed in the mid-70s to be living weird reclusive past-obsessed lives in their wretchedly decaying old house full of cats in the Hamptons. These two women, Big Edie and Little Edie, mother and daughter, both born beautiful and still wildly theatrical, brought back to me my childhood mantra: I will not be eccentric.

Having that running through my head regularly as a wee kid should have been a sign.

In recent years, however, I've mostly abandoned that resolve, and pretty much do and dress as I please. And I haven't gotten too weird.

Last night, though, I was sobered. Seeing the state of their house -- when I'm a so-so-minus housekeeper and spend much time alone with husband and king-size dogs in our very messy house in deep mossy shade-- made me think about my old childhood resolve.

But the truth is that, having relaxed, I haven't turned into a camp icon. The truth hasn't turned out to be so bad. Even so, I'm turned out like a hip CEO today. The old fears seem to always leave their traces.



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The Courage to Teach

How did I not know about this guy: Parker J. Palmer?

I've just discovered his book The Courage to Teach--only now after all the wrestles I've had with this very matter. Where was he my first day of teaching at Duke when, as I later learned, the students and I had received different starting times for the class and I thought for the first fifteen minutes that all but two early birds had dropped out already?

This book has been out for 11 years, and going by Amazon ranking, appears to be quite in demand still. Well, Parker Palmer, Peggy Payne is on her way (to read you.)

For others: Palmer is located at his Center for Courage & Renewal. Or see his 3 minute video about getting over the feeling of powerlessness and seizing your "Rosa Parks moment in life."

His other books include:

To Know As We Are Known: A Spirituality of Education

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life

And more...

Note of interest: he spent 11 years living in a Quaker community.

Where I finally ran across his work was an old O magazine.





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Pink Courage

The magazine Pink has a highly specialized set of blogs on its website. Aimed at women, but there's wisdom here for anyone. Note: Wake Up Inspired, and The Courage Expert. Also blogs on such subjects as Romance, Style, PR and Copywriting.

Manage Yourself is currently exploring a particularly interesting question: "How do I know when I'm limiting myself?" I think I am. And I think it has to do with the vestiges of a sort of rebelliousness: writing just a tiny bit "difficult," as a sort of playing hard to get.

Anyway, Pink has some good resources for the courage and boldness and creativity seeker.

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Terrorism in India

What has happened in Mumbai -- the attacks at hotels, train station, other sites -- disturbs me in one way that I'm not hearing mentioned in the interviews I've seen.

This dreadful assault is getting worldwide attention, apparently because there have been foreign victims and because the site is a world financial center.

But there have been many other outbreaks of communal violence, in India and elsewhere, that did not register more than a flicker on the world media screen.

I wrote about one of those rounds, which occurred in the Indian city Varanasi where I was living to research my novel Sister India.

Those events became part of the novel. Taking notes and writing are probably my major coping mechanism.

The street fighting broke out about a week and a half after I arrived, and the city of a million people was then shut down in curfew for 24 hours a day for most of the next two weeks. All businesses closed. Everyone to stay inside.

A bomb blew up an apartment building about a kilometer away from my flat. I could hear gunfire from my rooftop patio.

I had flashbacks for two years after my return about a grisly incident in a nearby street that I hadn't even witnessed, but only read about. A rickshaw full of Hindu women was hacked to death. I couldn't stop myself from re-imagining it.

But no foreigners were involved. I was in almost no danger, because being neither Hindu nor Muslim, I wasn't a target. And the news was barely a flicker back in the USA.

I can only imagine what it was like to be holed up in the Taj (where I once spent a few days) while terrorists were hunting people to shoot, with a special interest in those who looked like me.

Even so, it feels wrong to me that events of similar magnitude stir so little outrage when the targets aren't American. I do understand press coverage that focuses on a local angle; but I don't like that an event becomes a global outrage more often when well-heeled foreigners are involved.

(An aside: the most elegant party I have ever attended was a night-time torchlit reception in the gardens of one of the homes of the Oberoi family of the Oberoi hotel that was a target of these attacks. It was on my first visit to India in the late 70s with the Society of American Travel Writers.)

I am grieved by what has happened, hated seeing the grand old waterfront Taj ablaze.
And want, for whatever good it does, for every random violent death to get the same indignation.



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Family Cooking Adventures

I believe I mentioned that I, a non-cook, was venturing to make the turkey dressing for the family gathering this year (rather than buying my assignment.)

Here's how the project shook down. I stirred stuff up and cooked it and it was bad: no taste, weird texture. So I tore it up and added milk and some spices and whizzed it all up with a mix-master and cooked it again. Then packed it up for the trip to the coast.

The final product was better. Edible. Would have been good except for the fake bacon bits I threw in, which sort of dominated. Well, no one complained.

However, my ten year old nephew Tucker produced a triumph. His assignment was corn pudding (he likes to cook.) I didn't know who'd made what or that any of the kids had cooked anything, and said at dinner: "Who brought this?" It was phenomenal...inspired. The kid has a talent.

Talent or not --and both of those situations were represented-- I think Tucker and I were both pretty bold. For a ten year-old boy to produce a work of art in the form of a casserole...or for me to take a shot at something non-store-bought for the occasion both strike me as venturing outside the ordinary. And we all had a good time.

Hope your Turkey Days were good.





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Charming Persistence

Having trouble getting yourself moving? Have a look at this wee newborn elephant's first efforts to stand.

Also, note to writers of books: novelist Bill Henderson has a good three-part post on getting an agent.

And Happy Thanksgiving!


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"Fear Less. Live More."

What caught my attention was an ad for a Lincoln in an old New Yorker. Standing beside the car in the picture was a twentyish woman, radiantly beautiful, an athlete, doing her stretches. Then I noticed her legs: one was metal.

Sarah Reinertsen is the first woman to complete the Hawaii Ironman triathlon with an artificial leg. This race involves 112 miles on a bike, as well as long stretches of swimming and running.

In the sky of that stirring picture was a quote: "Don't ever give up...Not once. Not ever. My dream is to do extraordinary things every day."

Sort-a puts any holiday pressures into perspective, doesn't it? (Of course she may at this moment be totally wrecked over trying to deal with a turkey.)


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Thanksgiving Stuffing

Usually for potlucks, I choose the lucky pot at Whole Foods on the way to the event.

This week, for unknown reaons, I'm going to cook my own Thanksgiving pot. My assignment is stuffing for twelve. I found a recipe that is perfect for those who have issues with authority (or simply crave creative latitude): one third of any combo of the items on list A, with two-thirds of any combo of items on list B. Stir. Bake.

I actually have some curiosity about how this will turn out. Will report.



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Boldly Generous

Two friends yesterday offered to give me professional feedback on my 394-page novel manuscript and get back to me in a couple of weeks--never mind that the holiday frenzy is cranking up. And they both refused my earnest offers of cash or kayaks. (They could get a couple of good kayaks for the going rate on what they're doing.) I am wowed and overcome. And feeling grateful (see gratitude dance) to the several folks who have been generous with their support of this book.



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Older and Bolder

Went to a surprise party last night for a friend turning fifty. As I am six weeks from sixty, I was marveling at her youth, at the wealth of time ahead of her.

A few years ago, when husband Bob turned sixty, my mother, then eighty, said, "You tell him I've had twenty good years after sixty so far. I love the "so far." Now she's eighty-six and still a party animal.

I'm trying to figure out what to make of aging. For a while, it was just dry skin. Then it became really dry skin, etc. Emphasis on etcetera. But the age of sixty has connotations.

It gives me the impulses to speed up and to slow down. I think I probably alternate.

Maybe it's possible to age without a strategy, just by keeping on pedaling as usual and noting what does or does not change.

This morning I was considering the awfully expensive skin cream Stryvectin. I've already decided to celebrate by taking a one-month sublet in Manhattan next October, which will likely also be good for business. (New York has always been my Plan B life, so I'm going to fit a collapsed version into one month.) I may have other lives I need to fit in soon. Interesting to think about. Aging both stirs and requires an extra dollop of boldness.

(I googled "turning sixty" and turned up 352,000 sites. Many highly verbal people have thoughts on their experience at this moment. Here's another writer's..)



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He Does It His Way

Turning through an old Utne Reader last night, I came across a stunningly bold artist: Wolfgang Laib.

One site I checked him out on called him a Post-Minimalist. Never heard of that before, but I'm in favor.

What Laib does is take materials like milk or pollen or rice and use that organic life-generating stuff to create an imagethat's as simple as a rectangle or a cone.

The picture I saw last night was a large rectangle on a stone courtyard floor made of yellow-gold pollen that looked like a block of sunshine. I couldn't believe how radiant it was, and that it wasn't electrified. It glowed against the gray. (He collected every grain of that pollen himself, and that's an important part of his process.

He also makes glossy white surfaces out of milk on marble. Eerie-looking. Moon-ish.

Imagine telling your father that's what you're going to do when you get out of college. Or your spouse. Or your art dealer.

But it's astonishing work. Painter like the Luminists specialized in representing light. This guy seems to be working with the actual substance of light.

(I told husband Bob about him artist this morning. He murmured, "Jackson Pollen.")



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Customer Courage

Just this morning I felt a stupid three-second waver while trying to find someone to sell me a used power supply for my not-new laptop. I was 40 minutes away from the one I'd forgotten and left at my office

I was browsing the Yellow Pages, and thinking: But what if I call the wrong place? Suppose I call a company that sells only giant networks for global corporations?

Well, so what if I do? As a British bus ticket vendor once said when I made a preposterous physically-impossible request out of geographic ignorance: "Oy loyk a giggle."

That's the worst that can happen. No need for three-second wavers.

This is a variation on retail therapy, when you go shopping to feel good. This is personal growth through shopping.


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A Spiritual Approach to Being Bold

For moments when a bit of originality, creativity, authenticity, or daring are needed, try this experiment. Try saying a genuine prayer--even if you're a nonbeliever.

I don't just mean a reflexive: Oh, God! Get me outta here!

I mean: Hello, God, could you join me in this endeavour? Here's what I need....(then be as specific as possible)

If you're a nonbeliever, you could substitute Higher Power or Best Self. Hello, Best Self, could you join me in this endeavor? (Note: Best Self is available at all times. Does not require weight loss to achieve.)

At the very least the meditative moment helps.

At best, the results are startlingly good.

Here's one to try out, if you doubt that. Next time you're about to enjoy an intimate moment with your partner, say a silent quarter-second prayer: Make me a more generous lover. The results could turn Bill Maher (Religulous) into a believer.





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Amy Poehler's Girl Power Adventure

Amy Poehler -- the Saturday Night Live star who played Hillary and Katie Couric to Tina Fey's Sarah Palin -- has launched a bold new venture. A web show called Smart Girls at the Party. It features young girls and aims to inspire young girls and is entertaining even if you, like myself, are not a young girl.

Poehler says the show is about "extraordinary individuals who are changing the world by being themselves."

The opening interview is with a ten-year old writer and "scooter enthusiast" named Cameron. A video clip shows Cameron doing her writing in a tiara.

I have seriously had in mind to get some sparkling headgear to wear while working on my fiction and once put a jewelled crown on my Christmas list of ideas for my husband; he said, "You'll have to get your own crown." I hadn't gotten around to it.

Amy and Cameron are encouraging me to get on with it.





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$500 House

It's on Hawaii-- in a town lyrically named Haiku--built by 22 year-old Chelsea Kohl with her partner Chelsea Heller. The story is in the November issue of Dwell magazine. (The story isn't yet archived online.)

The house is made of found objects including surf boards, a disassembled truck, phone poles, stairs from a sugar mill. One lovely mosaic-like wall is made of wine bottles and what appears to be cement. The bed of the truck with mattress and quilt forms a combination loft/double bed.

Awful as it sounds, it's delightful. A cottage from fantasyland.

It takes some gumption to build your own house from scratch. It's particularly so for twenty-something women. Even more so, when you're using bits of this and that and sticking with a $500 budget (the land belongs to Kohl's father Bill, who Google research suggests is a cottage architect.)

Kudos to all the creators of the Haiku House.



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Using Facebook, Etc.

I just got a notice from MySpace that I must "use it or lose it."

They're referring to the MySpace page I acquired in a fit of connectedness a year or so ago. The result of that is being officially located in five social networks. (I paid someone to set me up.) I haven't done anything with any of them except to somehow double my presence on Facebook by accidentally creating a second version of myself, with separate sets of friends. And to get offers of friendship that I don't know how to confirm. And be reminded that I might know this other Peggy Payne who was at Duke the same time I was.

Eventually, I will hire a teenager to explain some of this.

In the meantime, I'm apparently out there snubbing people with unconfirmed friendships. I felt so bold when I signed up for all these networks.

Now I'm starting to feel the way I did the one time I set off on a jetski. Careening, and likely to aground any moment. (That's not me doing the triple axl in the video.)


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Blog Free

The tune that's running through my head is "Born Free," which is probably from my Peter, Paul & Mary days.

Blog Free, however, is my current set of lyrics. As I was just saying to one of my brothers on the phone, the cool thing about this kind of writing is that it's almost unlimited.

No editors. No revisions. No meeting market requirements. No deadlines. No need to stick to the subject.

Plus a conversation results.

It's like a pulpit without all the complications of a church. Or other similar comparisons. Free swim--I think I may like that one the best. (Note the chihuahua in the orange bikini.)

After more than 35 years of freelancing, to be able to just maunder around in language. Say things any which way. Well, it does good things for my lungs. I can feel the freedom physically.

Wow, what a pleasure this is.



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Puppy Cam

Who wants to be bold all the time? It would lose its zing.

Here's a nice break: a webcam watching a litter of puppies who are at the perfect age to be the ultimate in delightful. They were all asleep when I just peeked in, but stretching and shifting around and propping their heads on each other in a winsome manner. I'm not a huge fan of cute; I tend to prefer gorgeous and majestic and mysterious, etc. But these little guys are a don't-miss.

Note: I was tipped off to their location by the blog wowOwow, The Women on the Web. However, dog-people of any gender will enjoy this, I think.




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Authenticity and The Velveteen Rabbit

A charming and inspiring Youtube snippet from The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams Bianco, illustrated with watercolors, read by Meryl Streep, with music by George Winston: "he wished he could become real without these uncomfortable things happening to him."

A classic story--about love and authenticity and a little toy rabbit becoming real, "For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard...."

I'm guessing the author intended this story to be about love mainly--and the way appearances cease to matter. I think it also speaks strongly to anyone who ever lived in a psychic cupboard.




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Trying Too Hard! Too Much! Overkill!

Ever felt a trifle nervous on a new job? Told yourself, "Just act normal"? Or worse: "Be funny"?

If so, you must read: "I Am So Funny". "My brief and wondrous career at The Daily Show," Lauren Weedman writes, "consisted of making jokes about the Amish and trying to get Jon Stewart to love me."

Jon Stewart didn't come to love her.

I've become quite a devotee of The Daily Show during the recent campaign. Resolved to write for them or Saturday Night Live in one of my upcoming lifetimes. Weedman, though, did it exactly the way I fear I'd do it: by being so overwrought that she was alarming. But the trip was worth the story, at least if you're the reader and not her.

It's an excerpt from her book A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body: Tales from a Life of Cringe.

It's killer funny. And a cautionary tale about trying way too hard.



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Getting Rid of an Obsession

An excellent primer on stopping an obsessive thought is posted on Beliefnet, which is a great place to explore/talk about any sort of spiritual belief or doubt.

The ideas in the piece are familiar to me--but then I'm quite a student of obsessions and the stoppage of them. However, I don't recall seeing them so well condensed and assembled, also with pictures for each that are oddly persuasive.

Obsession can get in the way of boldness or of any movement at all.

Once I went to a party that reminded me of this. It was a birthday party held in a warehouse-like space that was already filled with an art piece. The art was made up of the old narrow single beds from a state mental hospital. They were empty and made up with white sheets, and all the air between and above them was thickly cobwebbed with black string. A terrific three-dimensional visual of what obsession feels like -- one aspect of it, anyway.

So the guests were given scissors and we cut down the net of obsessions. I have somewhere a picture of myself doing that. It was satisfying to do, and useful to remember: to do what's necessary to cut through that sticky stuff.

Added note: some obsessions, like a romantic yearning, we don't always want to give up hope on. Once when I was single I had one of those hanging on too long. My therapist said, "Cut it off." By which he meant giving up every hope or ambition. I said, "That's hard." He said, "As hard as my cutting off my own hand." I have to say, though, it worked, and was a lot less painful in the long run. It was time.



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Host/Hostess Anxiety

I find entertaining difficult, not while people are at my house, but in advance of the event. Has to do with cleaning up the house.

We live in a log house in the woods and have one large dog and one very-large dog with us in the house; both of them, bless their hearts, are shedders and one enjoys rubbing against furniture and appliances. And then my husband Bob --bless his heart too--uses the seats of chairs for storage areas.

I didn't suffer from hostess anxiety while I was single. And this is curious because I was and am what an English ex-boyfriend referred to as "a heap." If it was my junk, it was okay for people to see.

I opened a book this morning that has been useful for me: Daring to Be Yourself by Alexandra Stoddard. Saw a couple of things I'd underlined way back: "There is no need to be a nervous hostess. I feel comfortable when I entertain but only if I don't put on airs." and "Your guests want to experience your natural style."

But my natural style does not involve dog hair. But I've also come to realize: my heapish artist style did not produce the rustic house next to the pond, all of which I like very much. Bob (and his ex) were the creator of that. And I get more credit than is due. So maybe it all balances out. Or maybe none of that matters. (That's an idea I try on for size; actually I don't buy it.)

In any event, it seems to be my natural style to marry a guy who creates a wonderful woodland house where the leaves are now madly and brilliantly falling as well as the dog hair and piles of books. So that's the style that it's okay to show.



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Your Vote Counts: Winning by a GASP

In the little I did about campaigning, I was plagued and hindered by the thought that I wasn't doing any good for my candidate. Phone-banking--well, I did it, but at the same time I know I've never been persuaded of anything by somebody calling me from a campaign. Same thing with door-to-door canvassing.

However, when I look at the campaign group that formed and blossomed in my town in only the last weeks of the campaign, I'm convinced as never before that every single vote matters, and that every effort to help a voter get registered and to the polling place counts.

Here's the persuasive (to me) data: GASP began with ten women about six weeks before the election. By election night, there were more than a thousand: registering people to vote, cooking meals for volunteers, writing, making calls, and giving many thousands of dollars.

Then when the votes were in, North Carolina went for Obama, first time for a Democrat since Carter in 1976, by roughly 14,000 votes. Wake, where GASP was at work, went for Obama by about 15 percentage points. Had Obama led in Wake by only 12 points, Obama would have lacked the votes to win the state.

Though it cannot be absolutely nailed down, I am convinced that the 1,000 + women made the difference. Disclosure: I'm not even officially a GASPER, never went to the first meeting. But from now on, when doubts arise about whether my effort will help, I'm going to remember this, and do what I can.

Addendum: GASP is now looking at what their next effort should be.


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A Turning Point

Pivot is a move that has become familiar in my writing career.

Just when I think I'm done with something I learn something new that will make my book better or more marketable in some substantial way.

That happened once again yesterday in my writing group, led by Laurel Goldman.

Fellow member Joe Burgo was struck with a thought no one had had before that would make my writing more accessible to more people faster.

He seemed worried that he'd caused me a great inconvenience. But he's really onto something, and I worked three hours last night on the first page, making tiny non-objectionable changes that I think will welcome a reader faster, especially a more casual reader. (I'm now going to do that for a lot of other pages.)

It does go against my essentially reserved nature (I say that while blogging away, like a pop tart telling a TV reporter she's a private person.) And, if I may delicately say so, it pisses me off that I don't get to speak in the way that comes most naturally to me. I did enjoy expressing myself on that subject yesterday. Writers who match the zeitgeist get a lot more work done a lot faster and more easily. But this exercise seems to be part of my dharma, and so I carry on--and with some fresh interest.






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Toughness and Serenity

A hope I have for this new administration: that the uncommonly calm-seeming Obama will make it hip to be understated.

I have a stake in this. While I strive to be bold and clear, I'm naturally inclined toward saying things only once and none too loudly.

Now we have a leader who has managed this enormous political feat while seeming almost serene. In the last week, Charlie Rose asked of one of his guests: "Does he have any outrage?"

I very much admire the combo of leadership and calm.

See?! Soft-spoken does not mean wimpy.

A person can boldly step to the front of the free world without getting all rowdy about it.

I thought I'd seen someone else writing to the same effect, with the title "Born to Be Mild." But it was about a motorcycle.



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America the Bold!

I am happy! and grateful! at the election results.

John McCain was heroic, showed true leadership, in his concession speech. It couldn't have been more graceful.

Barack Obama--well, you know how I feel. He makes me so proud of my country. The only moment I thought he showed his own pride and joy last night was when he introduced his wife as: "the next First Lady of the United States." In a gut way, that was the moment that stirred me the most.

I know also that many are disappointed this morning, people who worked hard for McCain. Listening to him last night, I could understand why. I'm trusting that, as was promised last night, Obama will prove himself to you, that he will be your president too.



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Do the Right Thing and Vote

Sometimes when I've felt chilly in the car, I've reached over and turned on the radio. Not the heater, the radio. As if any knob would do.

Yesterday, with this important election day looming, I had a strong impulse, not to campaign, but to vacuum my car. On deadlline for one project, I've sometimes madly worked on another.

I picture a sort of free-floating urgency that thinks it will be satisfied by any action. But it's not true.

So now I remind myself that I must do as Forster suggests: "Only connect." Not quite the way he meant it. But it works. Connect the urgency with the needed action.

Minutes ago, the postman stepped into our foyer with the mail for these four offices. I wished him a happy election day. He said, "Tomorrow this time we'll have a new president."

"Have you voted?"

He laughed in an embarrassed way. "No, not yet."

"Are you going to?"

"I hope so." (He hopes so?! For one thing, this man is African-American! What is he thinking?! I was tempted to get between him and the bowl of candy we keep on the front table, but then realized that would be probably be illegal.)

I said, "Please do. Please vote."

I'll say it again: Please vote. It won't do any good to just turn on the radio.

(Another good Forster quote from Howard's End via the website Only Connect: "Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion."




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The Eve of Election

If you haven't already voted, please figure out when you're going to do it tomorrow. Allow plenty of time. Take a book. Take a neighbor. I don't think there has been a more crucial election in my lifetime (except, of course, when my brother has been on the ballot in NC.)

Today it seems that everybody I see is a little agitated and excited. The security guards in a state office building wanted to know where to get the particular Obama pin I was wearing (the one with Martin Luther King on it.) When I said where I'd gotten it, one of them lit out down the street on foot to get one.

Or maybe it's just me seeing the whole world as excited. If I wake up tightly wound, I realize it first when I can't decide what to wear. If I simply can't accessorize. This morning it was scarf fever. I tried so many different things around my neck that finally my husband, who thinks scarves are silly and unnecessary, started telling me that each one looked good.

I gave up. No scarf.

Tomorrow, I'm signed on to spend the last hours of the voting day as an IMPARTIAL observer at polling place. I'm just to watch and make sure everybody gets to vote and report any problems to an on-call lawyer or technical problems guy. To seem impartial, I will have to calm down. This would indeed be bold.



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American Dream

Want to know what irks me about almost every campaign I've ever seen? It's the idea that there are "average Joes" and "everyday Americans" and "the little man."

In my view, there are people -- and every damn one is a big deal.

That's the point of the United States. And also of the Democratic party.

The combo of this hot hot campaign with today's news of the death of Studs Terkel, the great oral biographer of both rich and poor, brings this to mind.

I'm convinced that any person's potential is greater if we all view her or him as a Big Deal. As a goldmine of possibilities. And take our own powers seriously as well.

I certainly see us as all peers in the matter of success in the writing business. You never know who is taking it up today for the first time, who'll have a bestseller two years from now. Students are ever passing the teacher. It happens all the time.

For example: years ago after publication of my first novel, an ad writer took me to lunch to ask me questions about getting started in fiction. Her name: Jan Karon, astoundingly successful creator of the Mitford novels.

It's just realistic to view each other, and ourselves, as remarkable.




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Writing about Sex

Last night I started reading--and almost finished--the newly released Desire, by Susan Cheever. It's about sex addiction. In her acknowledgements she made a comment about dedicating the book to her children who'd embarrassed to death by the book. A nice irony. And very interesting book.

I have a rather highly-sexed, potentially embarrassing-to-others novel in its final stages. My mother once sent me a quote from someone saying: "Pity the parent of a writer."

But we have to write what we have to write.



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A Small Bold Move

To tell a person immediately that I'm getting annoyed with whatever they're doing, instead of letting irritation pile up and then blowing up to the surprise of everyone.

Why is that so hard?


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Barack Obama in Raleigh!!!

A local TV station airing this morning's speech live estimated 28,000 people gathered in the downtown mall. The line waiting to get into the area stretched for many blocks, doubling back on itself repeatedly. My office partner Carrie waited over three hours and got in.


I walked around outside with my camera, so excited, taking crowd shots in every direction. This place in this moment with the choppers hovering overhead and the news trucks lining the curb felt to me like the center of the world.



Then from the loudspeaker, audible for blocks: Barack Obama, urging people to go straight from the rally to vote. "It's a beautiful day," he said. "Don't wait."

I walked back to my office, only a few blocks away, and listened to the rest of his speech on my computer. I've never felt more patriotic or full of hope for this country.

As I walked through downtown later in the afternoon,everyone seemed to know everyone, strangers speaking to each other as if they'd already met. The dull film that can lie over an ordinary moment was gone.
I want every day to be like that, with that kind of awareness and appreciation of everything. That to me would be a bold life.



At the same time, I can feel in myself a tempering of my excitement, as if that blunting of feeling would protect me in advance from heartbreak if my candidate doesn't become president. That kind of strategy doesn't work; it just gets in the way of the fun along the way. And may well get in the way of the best results. Because full enthusiasm is likely to lead to more action toward the goal.




So, I'm advocating full-tilt enjoyment of this historic moment, which, by the way, does not mean no-holds-barred behavior. Not at all. One thing that impressed me about this morning's 28,000. It was such an orderly and yet obviously delighted crowd.

Indeed, a beautiful day.












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Race Talk at Brunch

Sunday morning at a small get-together, I had the first direct personal conversation I ever had with an African-American about growing up on opposite sides of the color line in the South.

I'm almost sixty years old; how could it have taken this long?

Surprisingly it wasn't the Obama campaign that started the conversation. It was the movie The Secret Life of Bees, with the black woman in the group saying it was a shallow and unrealistic treatment of the black characters in the story. She called it "a white woman's fantasy."

This friend--I'll call her Jane--grew up with a mother who worked in a white woman's home. I grew up with a black woman helping to take care of me from my earliest memory until adulthood. In only a few minutes, we took a run through some very sensitive stuff: how this kind of arrangement could affect a black kid, how a black nanny might really feel about the white family. A fuller picture than either side typically saw.

During the conversation, I felt as if I were walking a high-wire: easily, but not daring to look down. At the same time, I felt a growing exhilaration and relief.

By the time I was halfway home, though, I was very sad. I didn't feel the connection with the earlier talk; but I knew it was there: how much my privilege has cost people I love, and how little I ever did to shift that balance.

I've come to feel that there's not a lot of point in flaunting guilt, or at least no admirable point; there's plenty to be done still, so I should shut up and do it.

Still, the straight talk was a good thing. For me, anyway.






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What We Don't Always Recognize as Courage

Some of the toughest kinds of boldness are not so obvious. They include:

*Waiting, when appropriate, and not "jumping the gun." Example: letting a manuscript sit a while, and then taking another look; instead of sending it off the instant it feels done.

*Changing a long-standing pattern. Example: crossing party lines to vote. A very minor example: A devout Democrat, I just voted Republican for the first time ever, on one Council of State race. It felt pretty shocking.

*Being sad when there's something to be sad about, instead of cutting the feeling off immediately with caffeine and busy work.

*Not taking on too much. Rather than overloading your schedule to the point of lunacy.

*Not worrying.




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I Like Ike's Kind of Freedom

Monday night I encountered a surprising bit of wisdom from a fellow I hadn't thought about in a while: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

I was a kid when Ike was president. He's the first prez I remember, and I was not of an age to be very politically minded. Curiously, I had fantasies about him calling me up and asking me to play golf with him. (Deluded child!!)

Second surprise, I was watching Jon Stewart's must-see distinctly-lefty satire-on-the-news Daily Show when I ran into word from this '50s Republican military man.

The guest author Eugene Jarecki was talking about his new book, The American Way of War. He said that Eisenhower, five star general and supreme commaner of the Allied Forces in World War II, warned us in his farewell address of excessive defense. Extreme efforts to ward off intrusion from the outside result in destruction from the inside.

As Jarecki elaborated: the cost of excessive vigilance is enormous and damaging financially--and it erodes civil liberties, the very thing we fight to protect. A pretty good description of the mess we're in now.

We need to take reasonable national precautions and otherwise exercise the same boldness we do by getting up in the morning. It isn't risk-free. We know that. And it's better to accept the risk of getting hit by a car on the way to school than staying home hiding under the bed and not getting an education.

Trying to completely guard ourselves is like trying really hard to broad-jump the Atlantic. No matter how hard we train, we'll wind up in the drink. Better to spend the energy some other way.

I like that philosophy. I think it's the only one that can work. Because total security simply cannot be achieved. No matter how much we spend.

I'm with Ike: let's take the reasonable and necessary risks that freedom requires. And no more.








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Southern Civil Rights

One profoundly thrilling part of voting last weekend was the feeling of how far we've come.

I grew up in the South during Jim Crow days. I took segregation for granted until I was 19 or 20, and then the admirably bold civil rights movement brought it to my attention. To my lasting shame, I had never even questioned the obvious and brutal unfairness to "colored people."

But Saturday I got to vote for a black man for president. That man doesn't use race as part of his campaign. But I can't help being proud that my country has come so far.

The reminders of the more racist past are ever close. Note in the picture the Confederate soldier with the American flag at the Chatham County courthouse in the rather liberal and educated town of Pittsboro where I cast my vote. Mostly we don't even see such symbols because we're used to them. It's so easy to not see things.

I devotedly love the South, North Carolina, and the town I grew up in--even though very bad things have been done here. I'm old enough now to have taken some interest in genealogy; I've recently learned that at least one of my direct forebears owned slaves and one of my forefathers was a young doctor who died at the Battle of Second Manassas. I take some pride in the fact that they were prominent citizens of their time and place; I'm not proud--can barely take in--the fact that some of my relatives "owned" people, with all the horrors that entailed. I wonder if there's any possibility that, like me, they didn't see. (Not that that excuses anything.)

At any rate, you can see what I carried with me to vote this time. I wish Ethel Gilchrist, the black woman who was my third parent, had lived to vote this year. I'm glad that I have.



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James Taylor Making Music in Carolina

James Taylor -- the real one, not a recording -- is singing outside my office window as I write this.

Taylor is a local boy--we claim him--who is giving concerts to celebrate Obama. I don't need to tell you who Taylor is. Everybody knows. Years ago in India, I stopped at a one-table restaurant next to the Ganges. Three rangy twenty-something guys were sitting in three of the four chairs at that table. I sat down at the fourth.

Turned out that they were from Argentina and were working in Italy and had come to India on vacation. I said I was from the U.S.

"Where?" one asked

"Outside Chapel Hill."

One of them responded by singing a line of "Going to Carolina in my Mind." I smile now to think of it, how that pulled home and India, and Italy and Argentina together for me in an instant.

This morning, when I first heard Taylor's silky voice through the window glass, it was well before the concert hour. My office partner Carrie Knowles and I walked the two-and-a-fraction blocks down to the square. Taylor and his crew were doing their soundcheck an hour or so before the performance.

It turned into an intimate performance, with him singing "Suzanne," etc. and occasionally stopping to get an adjustment in "tracking." People had gathered, but it was still possible to get close, for him to chat with audience members only yards away.

I remember hearing him live back when he was a young long-hair, as was I at the time. That has been more than thirty-five years. His voice, singing the same songs, brings then and now together.

(Oh, he just started into "You've Got a Friend," a great campaign song)

Just now in the park, watching his hands close-up riffing on that old-style guitar-- It was like watching a Zen master performing a ritual done countless times. The automatic straight-from-nature half-aware look of his performance made me think of the truism: that it takes 10,000 hours of practice before we become good at our art.

He's good. And I'm now back at my desk typing; couldn't spare time to go to the whole concert, but it's floating through my window, inspiring both perseverance and ease.

That ease with the music that's grooved into his brain: that can free an artist to be bold.

Carrie went back for the formal concert, took this picture; she could no longer get close enough to see who was singing. But there was no question whose inimitably distinct voice it was.








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Saturday I Went Out Voting....

I've never before voted early. I've never before even known it was possible, except for expatriates, etc.

This past weekend, I put on somewhat-better-than-the-usual-Saturday-gardening clothes and my Obama button and went (as promised here last week) to my county seat (pop. 2,226) of Pittsboro, NC, and eagerly cast my vote. (They wouldn't let me take a picture of my ballot, no doubt fearing I would duplicate it and stuff the ballot box.)

I've never been more excited about voting and that's saying something because one of my own brothers has held statewide office elective office here for eight years and I still have the campaign hats and buttons to prove it.

Here's the big news: There was no line. Which is one big reason to do it now. I was voter 1028 at that site, but I still didn't have to wait. Where I usually vote, at an AME Zion Church just down the dirt road from my house, I've been as low as number 17, and I don't tend to get up early. So there's an exciting lot of action going on, and voting early lets you enjoy it.

For a Democrat, I discovered, Pittsboro is a fun place to vote: lots of like minds. I just did a little research on the place. Fascinating trivia:

"Pittsboro is known for its large population of single adults. (59%!)

Approximately 36% of Pittsboro is non-white. The town boasts a diverse population for North Carolina, with several racial groups well-represented among the population.

There is an unusually large share of women in the town."

Lot of arts and crafts and granola and live music and garden supplies, too, as you might imagine.

All of which is to say: the weather is finally crisp new fall, it's a new season, so take part in it by voting now. (And please consider voting for the candidate who will bring us a much-needed fresh new season: Senator Barack Obama.)




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